Predictive Control for Spacecraft Rendezvous

The brief presents several applications of model predictive control to rendezvous manoeuvres, including Ankersen zero-order-hold particular solution1, which provides a realistic thrust profile. It offers new approaches for rendezvous manoeuvres in elliptical orbits, formulating obstacle avoidance constraints, passive safety constraints, and robustness techniques. It also compares finite-horizon and variable-horizon formulations for model predictive control in the context of performance and computational complexity.